Posts Tagged ‘SME’
Monday, May 30th, 2011
“I quit.”
These are words that every successful entrepreneur and business owner fears to hear from their best employees.
When a good employee leaves you, the costs of replacing that employee can be very significant for your business. For a skilled employee, I estimate the cost to be between 100% and 200% of that employee’s salary. It can be higher if your employees require extensive training and certification or your industry or business is unique.
Tangible costs include recruiting costs, management time to interview and hire, training and development costs to get the new employee up to speed (this can take years for certain skilled positions), lost productivity due to training and mistakes, administrative costs to process new employees and lost revenues due to lower productivity.
Intangible costs include the stress and workload put on your remaining employees when a key employee leaves, management distraction to replace an employee instead of growing the business, risks to your reputation when customers don’t receive responses as quickly or as competently as before, and lost momentum from having an employee with several years of experience and key customer relationships leave your business.
To retain your best employees, ensure that you are communicating frequently with them, provide a clear career plan for them, and acknowledge their contributions to your business and your customers’ successes.
When they leave, it’s usually not about the money, even if they say it is.
Use your unique advantages of size, culture, values, leadership and industry to provide long-term opportunities for your best people.
Are your best employees at risk?
Copyright Phil Symchych 2011. All Rights Reserved.
Tags: business, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, contingency planning, continual learning, entrepreneurs, I quit, leadership, Phil Symchych, profit, retaining talent, small business, small business banking, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co.
Posted in Phil's Profit Points, Talent | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
As a teenager, I worked in a retail store called the Met, short for Metropolitan (but a three letter sign cost a lot less than a 12 word sign). It was the worst summer job ever. As soon as school was out, I went to work in a dingy, dark basement putting price stickers on back-to-school supplies for the next school year!
Although the work was mundane, my manager, Peggy, was great. She was the first real manager that I worked for and learned from. She demonstrated respect for everyone including customers such as my seventy-something year-old grandmother who used to bring me diet cokes and teenage employees who would rather be outside playing tennis. Peggy had us focused on taking care of the customer.
Here are my lessons:
- Your customers are there to buy. Help them buy. Engage them in a conversation, make suggestions, take them to where the stuff is and help them decide.
- If you give them one product choice, they may take it or leave it. If you give them two similar products at different price points, they’ll usually pick one.
- If the aisle is too crowded for a shopping cart, the customer will get frustrated and go somewhere else.
- If their hands are full carrying stuff they’re buying, give them a basket or a shopping cart. Don’t ask, just give it to them.
- If I wanted to get promoted out of the basement, I needed new skills such as sales or working the cash register. I preferred exterior maintenance as it got me outside. I spent a lot of time on the roof with the pigeons, making sure they didn’t steal anything.
- People want value for their money. It didn’t matter if they were spending two bucks or two hundred.
- Part of the value for shoppers was the shopping experience: interesting merchandise, attractive displays, friendly staff, and a clean store (I could sweep 5,000 square feet in nine minutes flat).
High-end retail such as Apple, Mont Blanc pens or Tumi luggage engage their customers, educate on product information, and make you feel good about spending your money. Why else would my house be full of iPods, snow-capped pens and briefcases?
In today’s market of low-cost dollar stores, no service warehouses and self-serve gas stations, it’s not hard to stand out in a crowd, delight your customers and increase your sales.
Copyright Phil Symchych 2011. All Rights Reserved
Tags: Apple, back to school, business, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, continual learning, Customer Service, entrepreneurs, how to increase retail sales, mid market companies, Phil Symchych, profit, profitable growth, Sales, sales training, small business, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co.
Posted in Customer Service | No Comments »
Monday, May 16th, 2011
Your existing customers like you and trust you (or they wouldn’t still be your customers).
The easiest way to increase your profits is to keep in regular contact with your customers. All of your customers would probably buy more of your product and service from you if they knew all the different things that you do (don’t assume they do).
Too often, I’ve seen good entrepreneurs chasing more sales from new prospects instead of taking more time to learn more about their existing customers’ needs and wants. Chasing new sales is expensive, time consuming and inefficient.
Here are six tips for increasing profits from your existing customers:
- Develop a special offer exclusively for your existing customers. This could include an upgrade to their current product or service, or a new add-on to what they already own or use.
- Host a breakfast or lunch meeting to find out what is on their minds. Then, develop what they are asking for and provide it to them.
- Ask your best customers why they do business with you and then put that information into your marketing collateral, web-site, blogs and sales conversations.
- Conduct a survey of your clients to determine their current issues, challenges and needs in their business and then position your products and services to address their needs. A survey can have a broader reach and you can get faster feedback.
- Measure your profitability by customers. Some customers will be more profitable than others. Replicate your success.
- Ask your best customers to allow you to test your new products and services on them and give you feedback. They will be honoured to be asked and this can strengthen your relationship.
- Bonus point – ask your customers for referrals so that you can provide similar value to their friends and this will reflect positively on them. Many customers don’t know how to refer to you until you educate them.
The fastest way to increase your profits is to provide more value to your best customers. It’s low risk, high ROI.
Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
Tags: business, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, Customer Service, entrepreneurs, leadership, marketing, Phil Symchych, profit, Sales, sales training, small business, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co.
Posted in Phil's Profit Points | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
I was sitting in Tim Horton’s having my favourite bowl of chili with Larry, the restaurant owner, when an entrepreneur starting chatting with us. The guy noticed that Larry was wearing his Tim Horton’s dress shirt and asked Larry about his business. Larry mentioned that I helped him to grow his business. That got the entrepreneur talking even more.
The friendly entrepreneur was on a road trip to look at another business to buy as he had a few located in different places.
He said the he expected a return of 10% to 15% on his investment. I asked him how he knew it shouldn’t be 20% or 30%. He didn’t have an answer. You see, there are no speed limit signs when it comes to business growth.
Our car’s engine delivers optimal power and acceleration within a range of its revolutions per minute (RPMs). Your business is the same. You can grow it at different rates, slower or faster, and you will burn more fuel (that is, money) the faster you grow. The key is to find a growth rate where profit grows as fast or faster than revenues so that you are actually strengthening your company as you grow. Growing slowly can preserve cash just like driving slowly will preserve fuel but it won’t help if your competitors are passing you.
Idle 750 RPM; Red Line 6,500 RPM
Many people don’t rev their engines high enough and carbon builds up. I had a car expert tell me that certain owners who didn’t drive their performance cars often enough or hard enough had more problems because the internal workings never got a chance to set under the heat of high performance.
Philosophically, there’s a huge difference between cruising and accelerating (within the speed limit of course, metaphorically speaking). You need to take chances and accelerate. For one thing, it will teach you what you and your business are capable of doing. Mistakes are uncomfortable and they hurt, but they are valuable lessons and your ego will repair itself quickly.
Make sure you are revving your engine once in a while.
It’s about continual growth, personally and professionally. Failure isn’t a bad thing as long as you learn, pick yourself up, and try again. Not trying, however, can be fatal to a business.
For more information on how to assess your growth potential, click here and take the test.
I’m not sure when you last took professional driving lessons, if ever, so I heartily recommend any of the performance driving schools that are put on by the major manufacturers such as BMW and Mercedes. Not only will you learn some valuable skills (that may someday save your life), you will have fun and realize that it’s all about keeping the car under control at various speeds.
On the other hand: “If everything is under control, you’re not going fast enough” according to Mario Andretti.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.
Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
Tags: bmw, business, business cash flow, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, cash, Cash flow, continual learning, Customer Service, driving fast, entrepreneurs, increasing profits, leadership, marketing, medium business, Mercedes, mid market companies, Phil Symchych, profit, profitable growth, small business, small business banking, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co.
Posted in Business Growth | No Comments »
Monday, May 2nd, 2011
You may have read about our door fiasco in earlier blog posts. Well, our experience is getting much better.
We contacted The Door Store, a local family-business owned by Scott Brunskill, and they sent a personable and professional sales person, Devin, who gave us his advice (we were previously sold the wrong product for our climate) and he promptly provided us with a quote for the right product.
And, I mean promptly! Devin showed up with his laptop and portable printer and printed up a quote on the spot. That was easy, fast, and built our trust.
You can’t make it too easy or too much fun for your customers to do business with you, ever.
When a customer is asking you questions and even presenting objections, they are in a buying mood. Don’t try to sell them. Help them buy. In your business, how fast can you produce a quote or a proposal for a customer? How fast do you respond to referrals? Do you have a formal systems for acknowledging the referrals?
We’ve placed our order to have the doors upgraded.
Then, Devin and I wandered outside and talked about cars. Devin really knows how to connect with people. He’s a great salesman, and sales is a most honourable profession. This is why small and medium, private or family-owned businesses, can out-sell and out-perform big box stores any day of the week.
My advice: Forget the schizophrenic stock market and invest in your own business. It’s the best return you’ll ever get because you control everything. One of my long-term clients generated more than an 80% Return On Investment last year. More about this later.
I wonder who is going to get the first opportunity to replace some windows, update the garage door opener, and get future referrals?
Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
Tags: business, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, competition, Customer Service, entrepreneurs, leadership, marketing, medium business, mid market companies, Phil Symchych, profit, profitable growth, Sales, sales training, small business, small business consulting, SME, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co.
Posted in Phil's Profit Points | No Comments »
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
If you business is a significant portion of your retirement portfolio, and you haven’t sold it yet for cash, then there are several important things that you can do to increase its value (and your wealth).
Business value depends on several things.
Here is a simple formula:
Value = Building a management team so the business can run without you +
having information systems that can scale up with growth and provide real-time operating information +
developing strategies that maximize value to customers and get you out of the commodity business +
great results as measured by EBITA and growth.
Here is the logic: Your information system will give your management team feedback on your business strategy and that drives EBITA.
Assessment: Score 1 for ‘we’re terrible’, 5 for ‘average’ and 10 for ‘greatness.’
- How much of the day to day are you involved in or can the business run itself while you travel for two to three weeks without checking in? Score 1 if you have to make all decisions, score 5 if you can go away for a week but are checking in daily, score 10 if you can go away for a couple of weeks without a technology umbilical cord.
- Does your information system show you how many sales you have booked, how long your production is booked into the future, what your installation schedule is into the future, and what your anticipated cash flows will be on a weekly or monthly basis?
- Do your customers grind you on price (score 1-5 here) or are they delighted with your services and standing in line waiting for you to help them (score 10 here).
- Is your EBITA less than 5% of revenues (score 1), between 5% and 10% (score 5) or greater than 10% (score 10)
Your score: Out of 40
Below 20: you have lots of work to do. Start anywhere, all four parts are important. There is no value here.
20 – 30: You have some potential but need to improve in one or two main areas to have a stronger business. It will be a tough sell.
30 +: You are in pretty good shape but need to strengthen your weak area(s) to maximize your value and attract the best offer.
Improving the value of your company by increasing the financial results and creating an independent management team will make the business easier to sell.
If you have to be there all of the time, you don’t have a business, you have a job. And it’s very difficult to sell a job, in any economy.
Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
Tags: business, business for sale, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, business valuation, entrepreneurs, how do i sell my business, leadership, medium business, mid market companies, Phil Symchych, profit, profitable growth, selling my business, small business, small business banking, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co., what is my business worth
Posted in Buying or Selling a Business | No Comments »
Monday, April 25th, 2011
Welcome to our first weekly instalment of Phil’s Profit Points ™. We hope to help you improve your profits – in any business, of any size, in any industry.
Today, we’ll discuss how to use uniqueness as a value-based pricing strategy to improve profits.
How unique is your product or service? Can you articulate how you are different and better than your competitors? Value, quality, convenience, speed, service, flexibility? Note that I didn’t mention price. You don’t want to compete on price because you probably won’t win against the big guys who have economies of scale, deep pockets, and an unhealthy addiction to maximizing quarterly earnings at the expense of long-term sustainability and common sense.
If you are unique, you can use value pricing to increase your margins and provide your customers with higher value options and choices. Here are some examples.
High-end Retail: A custom-designed jewelry company can use value pricing because they are creating heirlooms for their clients.
Service: If you have a strong understanding of your client’s business and industry, you can create unique, customized solutions that will help your client to become more successful.
Manufacturing: You can warehouse, drop ship in small batches or hot-shot products to your customers so they don’t have to manage the logistics and inventory. This reduces their handling costs and working capital needs.
Construction: You can guarantee a fixed-price, on time, on budget, and great quality result. Our last kitchen renovation contractor achieved these, and we’ve referred numerous friends to them.
Granite slabs
If you are a commodity, then you aren’t unique. You might need to price based on your competition, which is a horrible pricing strategy, because there is no limit to how low the price can go.
Make sure your employees and customers understand how you are unique and valuable. Being unique is the easiest way to maintain or improve your competitive position in a sea of low-priced commodities and competitors.
After all, strategy is the invisible combination of how you align your resources to deliver amazing products and services that help your customers to be more successful. Focusing on your customers’ successes, instead of just trying to sell them something, will definitely make you unique.
Copyright 2011. Phil Symchych. All Rights Reserved.
Tags: Apple, business, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, Customer Service, entrepreneurs, how to improve profit, leadership, marketing, medium business, mid market companies, Phil Symchych, Phil's Profit Points, profit, Profit point, profitable growth, Sales, small business, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co., what is profit
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Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
I am presenting a free (short) webinar on Wednesday, March 23rd at 4:00 p.m. CST (that’s 6:00 p.m. EST) on the Four Steps to Profitable Growth.
Click here to register.
The four steps are: Dream, Design, Build, Grow.
Too often, when we’re in a rush, we take shortcuts. Things actually end up taking longer, with significantly more frustration, wasted time and resources. We can avoid this.
The fours steps are based upon best practices in the construction industry that I’ve learned from my clients.
With lessons learned from the pros who can renovate your kitchen or construct a 20,000 foot shop, these four steps can help you to accelerate your success and build your business.
Thanks to Look Matters (www.lookmatters.com) for hosting the event and suppplying all the cool technology.
Hope to see you there.
Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
Tags: business, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, Customer Service, entrepreneurs, leadership, marketing, medium business, mid market companies, Phil Symchych, profit, profitable growth, small business, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co.
Posted in Business Growth | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
Running a private business is more like driving through the bush than cruising down the highway. If you want to find out what’s really going on in your business, and where you’re headed, you’ve got to ask some tough questions.
Put on your helmet, we’re going off-roading.
Kevin Pare, owner of KSP Technology (www.ksp.ca)
Here are critical questions to help you understand where you are and where you can go.
- Why do your customers buy from you: emotion, save time, save money, make more money, improve repute, ego?
- What products and services generate most of your a) revenue and b) margin?
- Which customers are your most profitable and have the best potential?
- Where did your ten best customers come from, and how are you leveraging these streams?
- How much of your business is repeat business and what are you doing to accelerate that?
- Which competitors are making inroads and why – is it price, relationship or value?
- What is your cost of production – per unit, per hour, per employee, per dollar of revenue?
- What are the daily metrics in your business and how fast can you get them?
- What do customers want that you could deliver but currently aren’t delivering?
- What can you do better than your competitors, in your customers eyes?
- If you started your same business over again, what would you do differently, and how can you implement those changes into your current business?
- Whatever you are good at, how can you do it better, faster, cheaper, bigger, broader, deeper and with more value?
The most successful businesses aren’t satisfied with the status quo, and know that if they don’t reinvent themselves, their competitors will do it for them.
Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
Tags: business, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, Customer Service, entrepreneurs, leadership, marketing, medium business, mid market companies, Phil Symchych, profit, profitable growth, small business, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co.
Posted in Business Growth | No Comments »
Friday, March 11th, 2011
Books are one of the best investments on the planet. There is so much knowledge and experience that can be leveraged from others to help us accelerate our speed to success. We don’t have to learn by trial and error.
Here are a few of my recommendations for entrepreneurs and people who want to be more successful:
Liberating Passion by Omar Khan. I met Omar last week for the first time and he is an extremely interesting and wise man. He talks about how businesses can be passion killers, and how to avoid this in your business. Omar has lived, worked and traveled all over the world and has great consulting experience and perspective to draw upon.
The Referral Engine by John Jantsch. This is a powerful book for any business owner or manager to read and implement. Most new business comes from referrals yet many (well, most, 99% at least) don’t have any formal program or system for creating and increasing referrals. Jantsch has authored several books on marketing that are highly valuable for growing your business.
Thrive by Alan Weiss. I’ve know Alan for about five years and he has had a profound and positive impact on my life and indirectly on my clients’ lives. Alan defines wealth as ‘discretionary time’ and this philosophy is carried throughout the book. It’s a great read that puts everything into perspective. Alan exemplifies Thrive in everything he does and he’s truly one of the wisest and most generous people I know.
Here’s the formula: Passion + Referrals = Thrive
What are you reading that helps people be more successful and happy? How do you implement what you’ve learned?
Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
http://www.symcoandco.com/
Tags: Alan Weiss, business, Business Growth, business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, Customer Service, entrepreneurs, John Janstch, leadership, Life Balance, marketing, mid market companies, Omar Khan, Phil Symchych, profit, profitable growth, small business, small business consulting, SME, Strategy, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co.
Posted in Business Growth | No Comments »
